


Suspicion

by Liberty_Flight



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Luther AU, Maes is here but not long enough to be tagged, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 16:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16876038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liberty_Flight/pseuds/Liberty_Flight
Summary: Riza Hawkeye is suspected of murdering her father. Detective Roy Mustang is certain that she did it.[A oneshot Luther!AU with Roy as Luther and Riza as Alice]





	Suspicion

“Miss Hawkeye,” he greets, walking into the interrogation room.

She nods in acknowledgement.

“Hello, I’m Roy Mustang, Senior Investigating Officer. Can I?” He gestures to the chair across from her, when she nods he take a seat. “You must be very tired.”

He puts his papers down onto the table, and tries to straddle the line between reassuring and competent, as well as astute. 

“Yes, I am. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired,” she admits, sounding just as exhausted as she claimed.

She looks exhausted, and Roy can tell she’s been crying. Her skin is washed out and pale, the lights overhead not helping. The skin around her eyes is irritated and puffy from wiping away tears, and her voice is low and raspy from sobs. Her large light brown eyes are red. Her short hair is not in total disarray, as if she had tried to tame it with her fingers but had given up halfway.

“It’s shock. It’s the way our body reacts. It’s one of those strange things,” he pauses.

“Miss Hawkeye, I know this has been a terrible day for you, and things look bleak and you must be feeling very alone. But believe me when I say we will do everything we can to find out who did this.”

Roy has said that many times, the lines and sympathy automatic.

“Thank you,” she murmurs quietly, eyes on the table.

The pleasantries over with, now it was time to get into the investigation.

“Now, the things I’m about to ask you I have to ask.”

She looks up and he’s again struck to the bone by the pang of familiarity. The exact shade of her eyes tugs at his memory but Roy pushes it aside. He has an investigation to deal with, he doesn’t have time to dwell on why a murder suspect looks familiar.

“Do you have any idea who would wish harm on your father? Even just a feeling of unease, something your father might have mentioned”

“No, there’s nothing. My father…,” she pauses to collect her thoughts, “my father was a brilliant man, dedicated to his work.”

Roy leaned back in his chair, and crossed his legs.

“The thing is, Miss Hawkeye, this was a very singular crime. No sign of robbery. I’ve been an officer a long time and crimes like this aren’t random. They are never without motive. So as painful as this is, I’m going to ask you to think very hard about anything that could explain why your father would be targeted. Such as money issues your father might have been experiencing…”

“My father was brilliant,” she repeated, almost defensively, “but he had his vices. Drinking and occasionally gambling. So yes, there is a possibility that there was a financial motive somewhere, a grudge over an unpaid debt…It’s entirely possible.”

She said the last part quietly and with a hint of bitterness that did not escape Roy, though he didn’t ask.

Roy’s eyes narrowed in thought, already planning to investigate the financial angle further.

“Anything in particular that stands out to you?” Roy pushed.

“No,” she answered quietly, voice strained, “I keep thinking but I can’t…It’s as if I’m looking at it wrong.”

“Part of the way that the brain deals with stress,” Roy assured her.

It was somewhat routine to say these things, but there was something about her that was bothering him. Something about her mannerisms and he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He held back a yawn, watching as she bit her lower lip.

He needed to consult with Hughes.

“Can I get you anything? Coffee?”

“Sure,” she agreed, voice small.

Roy nods, gathering his files as he stands and leaves the room.

 

  


“She killed him,” Roy muttered as he made his way to his partner.

“So you think she’s guilty?” Maes asked.

“No,” Roy said, shaking his head.

“Self-defense?” Maes asked skeptically. “Why wouldn’t she just say that? Even if it’s not an open and shut case it would be easier than getting away with murder.”

Roy gave a humorless smile.

“Is it? She’s doing a damn good job.”

He drummed his fingers against the desk.

“Hawkeye killed her father, but I don’t think it was murder. Something else is going on here, Maes.”

And he was going to find out what, but first he had to get coffee.

 

  


”Are you comfortable?” Roy asks as he re-enters the room.

She looks up with a muted combination of offense and confusion. She’s picked up on his change of mood, and it makes Roy’s heart beat a little faster.

She’s smart, he can feel her scrutiny as he sets down her coffee and sips at his own as he reclaims his seat.

“As much as I can be,” she replies cautiously.

Roy leans back in his chair, feeling the thrill and apprehension of a difficult case.

But the niggling feeling of dread, of familiarity, still hasn’t left him.

“Sometimes one of the legs of the chair will be shortened,” he tells her, “to put suspects off balance. Makes them uncomfortable and unable to relax. Is it too hot?”

The question comes as her fingers twitch away from the too hot cup and Roy catches the flash of defiance in her eyes.

“So your father,” Roy says after a short pause, “brilliant, well known in academic circles. Infamous really.”

“Yes,” she agrees simply, watching him.

“You can’t achieve that type of brilliance without a few sacrifices, I can’t imagine that was easy on you as his daughter.”

He sees an aborted movement on her face, a small twitch that betrayed her thoughts.

“No, not always, but I imagine many parents have to balance their work and their families,” she replied, calm but pointed.

Her voice was still raspy, he noted.

“Your father was well known for his convictions and hyper focus,” Roy says, watching her reactions carefully, “I wonder if he even spared time for his family. it got worse after his wife died, didn’t it?”

And there he catches a flash of anger, a quick clench of her jaw before she tames her expression.

“We all deal with grief differently,” she says flatly.

Roy stood up, walked to the far wall and leaned against it a moment, watching her as she tracked his movement. Roy put his hands in his pockets, clenching them as the feeling of wrongness, of recognition took hold of him again.

He ignored it and took note of her tense shoulders and mentally recalling all the evidence of the scene.

“Have you heard of Occam’s Razor?” Roy asked.

She didn’t answer immediately, but when he didn’t offer anything else she replied. Words slow and wary, sensing his intentions.

“…All things being equal, the simplest solution is the best solution.”

“What that theory tells me is that the only person known to be at your father’s house this morning was you,” he informs her casually, allowing the slightest bit of accusation into his voice.

He walks across the small room, both of them feeling the tense atmosphere of a predator stalking prey.

“That’s quite an assumption,” she says after a moment, watching as he returns to his seat.

“It is,” he allows, “but there’s no evidence of an intruder.”

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” she replies calmly.

Their eyes meet and he feels that strange mixture of thrill and familiarity. He’s starting to hate it.

“It’s making a leap,” he acknowledges, “but really it’s more of a hop, a small one at that.”

A sardonic smile crosses her face.

“Is this the part where you ask me if I hated my father?”

“Yes, it is about that time,” Roy agreed,allowing his tone to sharpen. He frowned, wondering how she could be so calm.

“Did he neglect me? Yes. Did I hate him? No. Did I kill him?” She paused. “It’s your job to answer that, isn’t it, Mister Mustang?”

He stares.

Most people would say ‘No I didn’t kill him’ and yet she hadn’t even denied it outright. That she didn’t even bother lying…It was astounding in the worst, most infuriating, most puzzling way.

 

  


Before she left he couldn’t help but say one more thing.

“You look familiar.”

She stopped and turned to face him, still as cool and calm as ever, but Roy thought he could see a spark of interest there. And something almost like sadness pulling at the edge of her lips.

“I went by my middle name back then,” she informs him calmly, “but I thought you’d recognize me sooner.”

He should have looked at the file earlier, Roy realized. He had been caught up in his head after looking over the crime scene and hadn’t bothered.

Roy looks into the file in his hand, Riza waiting patiently as he opens it to read her full name, his heart skipping a beat at what he reads.

“Elizabeth…?”

The name Riza Elizabeth Hawkeye is clear as day on the paper.

“It’s been a long time, Roy.”

Slowly he looks up from the paper, meeting the auburn eyes that had seemed so familiar.

“Thirteen years,” he says, mouth dry.

“It was nice to see you, even in these unfortunate circumstances.”

Still calm, as if her father hadn’t been murdered and he hadn’t just been accusing her of the crime.

Roy resisted the urge to punch the wall and call her a liar. It was no wonder he hadn’t recognized her. She was lying through her teeth about everything. Her mannerisms, her smile…everything was fake. The girl he knew would not have grown up like this.

Except she had, hadn’t she? Roy could very easily be wrong, letting past attachments cloud his judgment.

“Eli-Miss Hawkeye,” he says, catching himself. His throat was impossibly dry.

“Riza,” she corrects quietly, almost softly, looking away to stare at her hands on the table.

 

  


They have nothing to pin on her, nothing that could justify keeping her in custody. Hughes says that they’ll find the murder weapon, they’ll find proof.

Roy is still trying to swallow around the knot in his throat, trying to reconcile the girl he had once knew with the woman in the interrogation room.

The woman who Roy was certain had killed her father.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for royai week 2018


End file.
